6,000-pound cowbell puts Belle on the map
by Jim McCarty | jmccarty@ruralmissouri.coop
Belle is one of those rural Missouri towns you wouldn’t stumble on unless you were headed there. It sits at the corner of Maries and Osage counties and is reached by a long drive down scenic highways where the view is of beautiful vistas punctuated by tidy farms.
The town of 1,300 residents is nearly equal distance from Linn in the north (18 miles), Owensville to the east (14 miles) and Vienna to the south (17 miles).
There are good reasons to visit Belle, including five dining destinations, three boutiques, a bookstore and two ice cream stands. But that wasn’t enough for Jim Zumwalt, who owns Mid-State Pipeline Maintenance in Belle.
Jim and his wife, Wendy, were sitting around the house one night brainstorming ways to bring more visitors to Belle. “You know, everybody has something, like Rosebud’s got the antiques and different things,” Jim says. “You just got to be known for something. You’ve got to have something to get something started.”
He recalled meeting another pipeline contractor who put Casey, Illinois, on the map with a dozen “Big Things,” including taking the World’s Largest Rocking Chair away from Cuba, Missouri. Why couldn’t Belle do something similar with the World’s Largest Cowbell?
Jim and his pipeline crew build big things every day. One of their recent projects involved boring a 3-foot tunnel under the Missouri River near St. Charles. They are currently building six sewage treatment plants.
Giant cowbell? No big deal.
“That was just kind of normal stuff,” Jim recalls of the huge bell that is now one of the town’s main attractions. “It was just another day.”
Like every great idea, this one started with a simple sketch. “We just literally drew it on a piece of paper,” Jim says. “I just took a little miniature cowbell and scaled it out and took it to Jeff at Heintz Welding in Bland. We made it 15 foot because we had 5-foot sheets. We didn’t really have a goal. But the record was like 9 foot. If we used 4-foot sheets, it’s 12 foot tall. And I was like, if we’re gonna make it, let’s make it really big. There’s not much more work in 15 foot as there is in 12 foot.”
The result is a towering steel cowbell built in 2024 and topped with a longhorn steer skull. A boxed I beam set in concrete holds the bell. It dangles from a bull ring attached to the skull.
The steer reflects the family’s ranch, which raises longhorns. The skull looks tiny from the ground, but Jim says it measures a full 6 feet from horn to horn. It was cut with a water jet from 1-inch-thick steel.
Of course, the bell had to ring, and Jim had the perfect piece for the clapper: a 380-pound wrecking ball. It does ring, but not with the sharp chime of a cowbell. It’s more of a thud, Jim says, because the inside is heavily braced and the bell is made from heavy-duty 3/16-inch steel.
Standing 15 feet tall, measuring 12 feet across and 8 feet deep at the base, and weighing in at a whopping 6,300 pounds, the bell is a monumental icon for the town. Jim started the process to have it certified as the world’s largest cowbell with Guinness World Records. But after learning it would cost $16,000 plus another $4,000 per year, he dropped the idea.
The current record — a 10-foot, 9-inch bell in Germany — pales in comparison to Belle’s bell. It stands alongside Highway 28 just a stone’s throw from the Mid-State Pipeline office, another small-town wonder. A year ago, the city of Belle asked for bids to remove the town’s feed mill that had fallen into disrepair. Jim just happened to be looking for an unusual building to turn into an office.
Previously he had put money down on part of the brick factory located in Mexico, Missouri. Since much of the material used to make fire brick at the plant came from Belle, it seemed like a logical choice. But the company that demolished the factory went too far and also destroyed the part Jim wanted. When that fell through, he tried to restore an old gas station, but it was too far gone.
Now the mill caught his attention. He did some research and found it would cost the city $30,000 to tear down the mill. He offered to do it for half that price, provided he got to keep it.
Instead of demolishing the landmark structure, he had it moved a few hundred feet from where it sat. Then he painstakingly gutted it, power washed the years of dust and raccoon droppings from the frame and turned it into an office with all of the modern amenities but with the charm of an old mill.
The outside gleams with new sheets of metal siding. Jim spent days searching for the last supplier of the metal, which resembles stone. He had poles and crossarms from a transmission line rebuilt near Belle sawed into lumber that was used on the porch and other places. The floor was salvaged from semitrailer floors.
Water main covers and iron pipe from jobs were worked into the design. A hog feeder was repurposed as a chandelier. Both Jim and Wendy have offices on the second floor. His is furnished in cattle baron fashion, while Wendy’s carries her trademark pink decor.
Study areas reached by a narrow stairway were built for their kids. There’s also an attached event center with a commercial kitchen that is used for safety training for the company’s employees or is rented to locals for weddings and banquets.
As if anyone could possibly miss the restored mill, at Christmas time the couple lights it up with 10,000 lights.
For the final touch, Jim found an authentic Rock Island Railroad caboose, which is now parked behind the feed mill office in anticipation of the Rock Island Trail State Park. (Belle’s portion of the trail is in the works.) The bay window railcar has been used by elementary school teachers to read train books to their students inside the caboose.
The couple’s goal of bringing visitors to town has paid off. One family from Montana made a detour on their trip to see the bell. Superlative chasers from all over the country have added it to their bucket lists. Visitors have included Missouri Lt. Gov. David Wasinger and U.S. Rep. Bob Onder.
But Jim isn’t one to rest on his laurels. He’s also general contractor of Belle’s 29-acre, 36,000-square-foot sports complex that will include two indoor basketball courts, a baseball infield, batting cages, weight room, golf simulator and concession stand. Outside four baseball fields built in a cloverleaf pattern will host tournaments. The OutKast Sports Complex is nearing completion and is expected to open in the fall.
He’s also got ideas for more giant attractions, including a bobber and fishing pole, with the bobber built from a propane tank he just happens to have. “I don’t throw anything away,” Jim says with a smile.
For now, he’s delighted to see visitors stop at 801 Highway 28 W. to see the bell — and then eating at the town’s restaurants and shopping in its local businesses.
“I want people to make a connection that actually brings something to the table to make this a better place,” he says. “If we can stop the decline of these towns and maintain them, we’ve won.”